State v. Shepard

• Decision Date: 03 February 2010
• Docket Number: No. DA 09-0318.,DA 09-0318.
• Citation: 2010 MT 20,355 Mont. 114,225 P.3d 1217
• Parties: STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Roxanna Lee SHEPARD, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

225 P.3d 1217

2010 MT 20

355 Mont. 114

STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Roxanna Lee SHEPARD, Defendant and Appellant.

No. DA 09-0318.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs December 10, 2009.

Decided February 3, 2010.

For Appellant: William F. Hooks, Attorney at Law; Helena, Montana.

For Appellee: Hon. Steve Bullock, Montana Attorney General; Tammy K. Plubell, Assistant Attorney General; Helena, Montana, Colleen Magera, Sanders County Attorney; Thompson Falls, Montana.

Justice JIM RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶ 1 Roxanna Lee Shepard (Shepard) appeals the Order of the District Court for the Twentieth Judicial District, Lake County, denying her motion to withdraw her guilty pleas. We affirm.

¶ 2 Did the District Court err by denying Shepard's motion to withdraw her guilty pleas based upon an alleged breach of the plea agreement?

PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND

¶ 3 On August 7, 2003, Shepard was charged with multiple offenses, including deliberate homicide, burglary, and aggravated kidnapping, arising out of her involvement in the murder of Steven Ash and attempted crimes against Caleb Russell. In April of 2004, Shepard executed and filed an Acknowledgement of Rights and Plea Agreement which she had entered into with the State. Pursuant to this agreement, Shepard appeared before the District Court and entered guilty pleas to the deliberate homicide and burglary charges, and the State moved for dismissal of the remaining charges. The agreement provided that the State was "free to recommend any sentence permitted by law ... excluding a sentence of death," except that the State agreed to recommend that any sentence imposed for the burglary offense would be served concurrently with the sentence imposed for deliberate homicide.

¶ 4 Prior to sentencing, Assistant Attorney General John Connor (Connor), who was assisting in the prosecution of the case, informed Shepard's defense counsel that he intended to seek imposition of a life sentence, but he did not intend to recommend a parole eligibility restriction. The plea agreement contained no commitment from the State regarding a parole eligibility restriction, although it acknowledged that the court could impose one. Consistent with his verbal assurance, Connor stated at the sentencing hearing that the "State does not recommend that there be a no parole restriction placed on [Shepard's] sentence. ..." However, in addition to imposing a life sentence for the deliberate homicide offense, the District Court also made Shepard ineligible for parole.

¶ 5 Shepard appealed to this Court, asserting that her sentence was illegal because the parole restriction violated her constitutional and statutory rights. We affirmed the District Court's imposition of the parole restriction. State v. Shepard, 2006 MT 251N, 149 P.3d 912. Shepard then petitioned the Sentence Review Division for review of her sentence. At a hearing before the Sentence Review Division on October 5, 2007, Shepard, through counsel, described the factual circumstances surrounding her sentencing and argued that the District Court's parole ineligibility condition made her sentence excessive, unnecessary, and inappropriate. Robert Zimmerman (Zimmerman), who was Sanders County Attorney at the time of Shepard's sentencing, appeared before the Division as a witness. He contradicted the factual background given by Shepard and opposed Shepard's request that the parole restriction be removed from her sentence. Shepard objected to Zimmerman's statement and argued that it constituted a breach of the plea agreement because it ran counter to Connor's commitment not to recommend a restriction on Shepard's parole eligibility. In its Order of October 25, 2007, the Division overruled Shepard's objection, declined to remove the restriction, and determined the sentence should stand as imposed by the District Court.

¶ 6 On November 24, 2008, Shepard filed a motion to withdraw her guilty pleas, asserting that Zimmerman's request that the Sentence Review Division leave Shepard's sentence as imposed constituted a breach of the plea agreement and that, therefore, her pleas were involuntary. On April 16, 2009, the District Court denied Shepard's motion. The court mentioned that the motion was untimely¹ and held that Shepard's challenge was essentially to the decision of the Sentence Review Division, that she made no argument that she did not obtain the benefit of her bargain under the plea agreement, and that the sentence became law of the case at the time of imposition and was beyond that court's power of review. Shepard appeals.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7 The standard of review for a district court's denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea is de novo. State v. Brinson, 2009 MT 200, ¶ 3, 351 Mont. 136, 210 P.3d 164 (citation omitted). Acknowledging that we have held that a district court's determination about whether a plea agreement was breached is reviewed for abuse of discretion, State v. Rahn, 2008 MT 201, ¶ 8, 344 Mont. 110, 187 P.3d 622 (citation omitted), Shepard nonetheless argues that a de novo review for correctness should be the appropriate standard in such cases. She argues that the abuse of discretion standard can be traced to State v. Sullivan, 266 Mont. 313, 880 P.2d 829 (1994), which involved, not a plea agreement, but an evidentiary question, and that a de novo review would be consistent with this Court's review of civil contract cases. The State cites the same authority and argues for application of an abuse of discretion review of the District Court's conclusion that the agreement was not breached.

¶ 8 We agree with Shepard. We have held that a plea agreement is a contract and is subject to contract law standards. State v. Hill, 2009 MT 134, ¶ 49, 350 Mont. 296, 207 P.3d 307. Based upon facts as determined by the fact-finder, the question of whether a contract was breached is a question of law which we review de novo. That standard is likewise consistent with the standard of review for motions to withdraw plea, at issue in this case.

¶ 9 "We will affirm a district court decision when it reaches the right result, even though its reasoning is not entirely correct." State v. Hendershot, 2009 MT 292, ¶ 33, 352 Mont. 271, 216 P.3d 754 (citation omitted).

DISCUSSION

¶ 10 Did the District Court err in denying Shepard's motion to withdraw her guilty pleas?

¶ 11 As a threshold matter, the parties dispute whether the plea agreement prohibited the State from taking a position on parole eligibility. The State argues that the parole eligibility restriction "was clearly not part of the written Plea Agreement" and that "[i]t is certainly subject to debate whether John Connor's decision to share his proposed sentencing recommendation with defense counsel in advance of the change of plea hearing rises to the level of an oral amendment to the written Plea Agreement." Shepard argues in reply that there was an unwritten "understanding" between the parties, which was communicated to the sentencing court, about the State not recommending a parole restriction. Further, Shepard argues that, in any event, the State took the position before the District Court within this proceeding that the understanding was part of the plea agreement, and should not be allowed to change its position on appeal.

¶ 12 It is well settled that "[a] party may not change its theory on appeal from that advanced in the trial court; nor may a party raise an argument for the first time on appeal." State v. Anderson, 1999 MT 60, ¶ 25, 293 Mont. 490, 977 P.2d 983 (citation omitted). We thus agree with Shepard. Given the position taken by the State before the District Court on Shepard's motion to withdraw her pleas, we conclude for purposes of this appeal that an unwritten understanding between the parties was reached prior to sentencing that the State would make no recommendation about parole eligibility as part of its sentencing recommendations under the plea agreement.

¶ 13 The State next argues that "a breach of plea agreement claim should not be viable after a judgment has become final, following a direct appeal of that judgment." Citing the statutes and rules governing final judgments, the State argues that Shepard's judgment became final in January 2007, and at that point "it was not possible for the State to breach the Plea Agreement, by which it had already abided." Shepard replies that this position is...